Distance
by Atropine
Summary: Yuuri's thoughts drift off while signing mounds of paperwork, and none of them are very pretty or optimistic. He still has a long way to go. Onesided YuurixConrad, R&R if you feel like it.


**Author's Note:** I need to work on keeping these things brief. Anyway, this is my first KKM fanfic, I love this pairing, and I'm totally unused to this style of writing. But it was fun to write anyway.

**Warnings:** Angst, a sprinkling of sexual innuendo, mentions of the Betrayal arc, more angst. Um, shounen ai too, but duh?

**Disclaimer:** Sigh. Don't own them at all. Otherwise they'd be getting busy with something far more exciting than stupid boxes of destruction.

------

Sometimes you hate it. Sometimes you wish things had happened differently, or not at all - anything but the way they are now.

You love it here, though. You love the people you've met, made friends with, even the ones you've had to punish through your alter ego, the Maou. You love the country; you think of it as a home now. Your heart has never shut anyone out, and there really seems to be room for absolutely everybody inside of it. You knew it wouldn't be a walk in the park, and you still have so much to learn. Maybe you will never stop learning; but you love the learning experiences the most.

Like learning that the feelings thrust upon you by a certain flame master were not so difficult to embrace. That in time they were even less difficult to return; that they were enjoyable, desirable. That you had begun to feel them yourself - for somebody else.

Firsts have always been special to you. Milestones, like your first day at a high school you worked so hard to get into or the first time you caught a baseball in your glove; they are marked, they define who you have been and the days you began to grow into someone new. Mementoes, like the school's acceptance letter or the first tiny catcher's mitt you ever owned; they each carry a part of your history, a piece of yourself, and many memories.

Those precious firsts are not limited to such things, however; people carry just as much of yourself, if not more so, than anything in that box under your bed. Your first friend, though you haven't seen or heard from each other in the seven years since he'd moved away, would always occupy a special place in your heart. Your first crush, though it had been your third-grade teacher, could still bring an embarrassed smile to your face.

Your first love…

You glance over at the man standing quietly in front of the window in your office. How long have you been trying to read the same line of this boring document, anyway? You let the quill go slack in your hand and opt to instead watch the sunlight play on the soldier's beautiful face, almost feeling envious of the bright rays that get to wind through his chestnut hair.

He was your first ally in this strange new world; the first one to call out your name; the first to smile for the simple fact that you had arrived; the first to put his life on the line to protect you. The man takes up a lot of first places in your heart.

As usual, Conrad feels your steady gaze and turns to face you. Your eyes meet, and he smiles his usual smile; you vaguely wonder how he always manages to catch you when you stare at him, and smile awkwardly back.

"Are you having trouble with the reading again, Your Majesty?" he asks kindly, knowing you still have trouble with the foreign letters from time to time.

"Ah…no, well, I did, but…" You turn back to the document and tense your grip around the quill again, hoping there's enough sun in his eyes to keep him from noticing the faint blush staining your cheeks.

He walks slowly to your side, still smiling, and leans over your shoulder to peer at the paper on your desk; that fresh and faintly sweet smell that just sings of Conrad overwhelms your senses. You feel you should pull away before you embarrass yourself, but you can never, ever pull away from him.

"Ah," he says softly, his breath ghosting into your ear and running a shiver down your spine. "It's just another land dispute. It seems this is asking for permission to remove part of a new fence."

"O-oh," you gasp out, staring blindly at the white page. "I…I think I get it now," you say, quickly signing your name at the bottom with jittery fingers.

And his smile widens with genuine pride, directed full-force at you and only you. And something inside of you melts on the spot - and you know. You know, just like all those other firsts, that your first love will always be able to make you weak in the knees, will always be able to steal the breath from your lungs.

The smile turns into a soft frown of concern. "Are you alright, Your Majesty?"

It's the second time he calls you that in the last five minutes; and the spell breaks. "I thought I told you to call me Yuuri, Nazukeoya," you say with a frown of your own, silently mourning the sinking back to reality.

"Forgive me, Yuuri," he says, that smile back in an instant. That damned smile.

You love the sound of your name coming from his lips. You have dreams about it being torn from those lips in the heat of passion. But they're only dreams - and the one you wake up to is as far a cry from the man in front of you as possible.

And you hate it.

You hate how you know you can't catch up to Conrad. You hate how the time you treasure spending with him is now tainted by the bitter knowledge that it is not spent the way you want it to be. Sometimes you even hate having that soul - _her_ soul - because you know you are only here through this man's pain.

That is enough to make you wish things had happened differently; sometimes you even hate how one man can elicit such a wish from you.

But you will never hate Conrad. He can betray you a million times more, and you will still never hate him. All you will do is hope that one day, he will see you as more than a child, more than Julia reborn, more than his king; you hope that one day, he will see you as a man. _His_ man.

And until that day comes - if it ever comes - you will do everything in your power to keep him from being hurt again. One day, you hope, you will be able to forgive yourself for being born at the expense of this man's heart. One day, you hope, you will be able to repay that debt of pain with something far more wonderful than either of you have experienced before.

"Yuuri?" his soft voice breaks through your thoughts.

"Sorry," you say, shaking your head briskly and smiling up at him. "I guess my eyes are just tired."

"In that case, would you like to take a break?" he asks, moving back to allow you room to rise from your chair.

"That sounds perfect right now," you reply and you move to the spot he abandoned in front of the window. It really was such a beautiful day…

And Conrad, as usual, seems to read your mind. "Perhaps we can go out for some fresh air?"

You look back at his smiling face, the familiar yearning tugging at your heart painfully. And you know, too, that that feeling will likewise not fade with time. You wonder briefly if it's possible to experience your first love and your first heartbreak at the same time, and then remember to nod in response to his question.

"Up for a little sparring practice, Yuuri?"

After all the battling you've been doing within, you think a physical one might actually do you some good. "Absolutely," you say, finally turning back around and returning his smile. And if an afternoon of watching Conrad in perfect form happened to give you something to think about later in the bath, you just might be able to call it a good day.


End file.
